


tinny penny

by orphan_account



Series: express shipping [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: what kind of artist destroys their muse





	tinny penny

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from my aff

 

_Agony_ can bleed down a canvas, reds mixing with blues and greens, dripping and combining until the colors are nothing more than ugly, soiled black, running down the twisted face of a featureless man, lips curled upwards in what some call a smile, and others call a scream.

It’s so _ugly_ —so _fucking_ _ugly_.

But in white ink, scribbled across the oil-slick of destruction that so many beautiful colors have decayed into, is the scrawl of a name that means everything to absolutely _nobody_.

_kris_

And it’s because of that name—those four letters written in white, those four letters, without proper capitalization, or even a _last_ name, that _agony_ bleeding down a canvas sells for nearly two million dollars.

Because people have nothing better to do with their money.

_kris_ is an artist.

He absolutely hates his work.

It’s all ugly, so ugly, and will never be as beautiful as his muse—nothing on this _planet_ could ever be as beautiful as his muse, _Huang Zitao_ —whose blood runs in rivulets down the canvas of _agony_ , what was once such a striking, vibrant crimson, faded to a dull, rust brown with time.

_kris_ is an artist.

Everybody who is _nobody_ knows who _kris_ is, and because _kris_ is so attached to his muse, everybody knows who Huang Zitao is, too.

_kris_ is a mystery—a tortured soul clad in all black, who almost always has a burning cigarette between his fingers, ash falling from the tip, and a chip on his shoulder enough to make him completely and utterly unapproachable. But he gets away with it, because he’s an _artist_ , he’s a _mystery_ , and he’s attractive, and only pretty people survive in this disgusting world.

The world that’s just as filthy and ugly as his art.

There’s speculation surrounding _kris_ —there always has been, always _will_ be.

_Where_ does he get such a _striking_ red for his paintings? _Why_ does his red paint always grow into a dull brown within even a matter of hours? Why does _Huang Zitao_ , the man who’s almost always on _kris’_ arm, bear such ugly, jagged lines across his wrists when his sleeves draw up?

_Huang Zitao_ is _kris’_ muse.

And God, does _kris_ adore his sweet angel, Zitao.

He drags his lips along Zitao’s skin when the night has fallen and covers them both in darkness, and the air of their studio apartment is heavy with the scent of paint and _iron_. He presses kisses of hot, smoky breath into Zitao’s neck, teeth dragging across his jugular, reveling in the soft, sweet moans that his muse rewards him with.

He holds Zitao from behind in the mornings, red-stained fingers snaking along warm skin and coming just beneath the waistband of a pair of sweatpants, when his beautiful little angel is making tea in the kitchen wearing one of _kris’_ shirts, and murmurs words lost to all but Zitao—words that make Zitao smile and giggle and push _kris_ away playfully.

He watches Zitao as he does simple things—and wonders how he could _ever_ do such a lovely face such justice, wonders if he could ever paint something so beautiful, wonders if he could ever be as skilled as the Gods were when they sculpted Zitao’s strong, but somehow delicate features—wonders if he could press the sweet, naïve hopefulness that Zitao harbors into the surface of a canvas and have it translate so pretty.

He _fucks_ Zitao in their filthy little bed, high into the night with the curtains drawn wide open, so the entire city can see the way his young, beautiful muse is writhing above, beneath, beside him, until Zitao’s chest is heaving and his eyes are filmy and wet and he’s a mess—a wrecked, incoherent, beautiful _mess_ , and the only syllables that leave his angel’s lips compose a forbidden name.

_Yifan_.

_kris_ loves Zitao, but _Yifan_ loves Zitao even more.

It’s _Yifan_ who drags his lips across Zitao’s skin when they’re bathed in darkness. _Yifan_ who kisses the shell of Zitao’s ear and whispers _you’re so beautiful_ in the mornings. _Yifan_ who sketches Zitao’s profile into a book of work that nobody will see or buy. _Yifan_ who makes love to Zitao with the city as their witness, until Zitao is breathless and pleading and whispering _I love you, Yifan_ against lips that taste of cigarettes and skin that’s perpetually stained the colors of _agony_.

It’s _Yifan_ who lifts a brush to his canvas and paints all of Zitao’s past—the _agony_ , the _fear_ , the _hurt_ —and it’s _Yifan_ who signs these paintings as _kris_ , and watches as people with more money and less talent than he fight over doodles of _somebody else’s_ past.

_Yifan_ absolutely hates his work—because it’s all _Zitao_ , all of the agony of Zitao’s past relationships; men who took advantage of an _angel_ and scarred beautiful skin—people who didn’t _cherish and love_ and _worship_ such a kind soul—people who didn’t love Zitao until the Moon died for the Sun and back again.

But when they attend his showcases, Zitao wrapped around _kris’_ arm, looking at his past with tears in his eyes and wondering who is hurting more from it—him or _Yifan_ —, people interpret so _incorrectly._ They gaze upon the artist and his beautiful, tearful muse and wonder if the vibrant, striking red was born from the jagged scars that mar _Huang Zitao’s_ skin. They wonder if it was _kris_ who did this to him— _kris_ with his cigarettes and _agony_ and mystery, who tore apart the Angel Zitao for his own perverse art.

_But_ _what kind of artist destroys their muse?_

Nobody knows _Yifan_ —nobody except Zitao—nobody knows how _deeply_ Yifan’s love for Zitao runs within his veins, nobody knows how _angry_ Yifan becomes when he sees the vibrant red of _pig’s blood_ fade into a rusted brown against the skin of his canvas, because Zitao, though loved and cherished and _forever_ _and always Yifan’s_ now, will never be able to watch his scars fade against his skin—will never be able to forget his past.

_kris_ only paints a past that Zitao cannot put into words ever again.  _Yifan_ does not hurt Zitao, does not look at Zitao with anything but unabashed affection.

_Yifan_ does _not_ destroy his muse——only spends every moment of his life trying to rebuild him.

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt given to me was "yifan is an artist and tao is his muse"
> 
> i mean technically thats what this is right
> 
> also theres a chaptered sequel


End file.
